PayPal account creation

Go to https://www.paypal.com and create a Paypal account. Not required but recommended for selling: Upgrade your account to "Premier" status and get "Verified"

Set the Encoding to UFT-8. In Paypal, go to Profile > Profile & Settings > My Selling Preferences (from left menu) > Paypal button language encoding (at the bottom of the page under More Selling Preferences) and set your website's language (like select "Western European Languages (including English)" as it is the only English version). Then click on the "More Options" button and set the Encoding to "UTF-8", select "Yes" to use the same encoding for data sent from Paypay to you, and save.

Enabling PayPal enrolment

An administrator can enable PayPal file enrolment as follows:

Go to Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins and click the eye icon opposite PayPal. When enabled, it will no longer be greyed out. Manual enrolment must also be enabled, since the PayPal plugin requires it.

PayPal business email - This setting is case sensitive and must exactly match that in PayPal

Default role assignment - This means the role that a new user will automatically be given in a course when they purchase access. Usually this would be "student" unless you have a special reason for choosing another role. As for other default settings, it may be overridden in individual courses.

Course settings for Paypal

Checking you have Paypal in your course

If you do not see PayPal, use the pull down menu "Add method" and select PayPal.

Make sure PayPal has its "eye" opened:

Note: Make sure you don't have Self enrolment enabled as this would allow users to access the course without paying. If you do need some users to self enrol for free, then add an enrolment key in the self enrolment settings.

Setting a price for your course

In Course Administration > Users > Enrolment methods, click the edit/hand/pen icon to the right of the PayPal option.

Optional: Give a name to this enrolment method if you wish in "Custom Instance name"

Ensure that "Allow PayPal enrolments" is set to "yes"

In "Enrol cost", type in the cost of your course and in "Currency" choose your currency.

Usually you would leave the "Assign role" as "student" unless you have a very special reason for allowing your users to enrol as, say, editing teachers etc

Choose an enrolment period and/or start/end dates if desired.

Click the "Save changes" button.

What the new user sees

When a new user clicks on your course link, they will see a message inviting them to go to PayPal to purchase access to the course. In the list of courses, PayPal courses have a dollar sign icon next to them.

Message inviting user to pay via PayPal

PayPal course listed with dollar sign icon

Changing the dollar symbol

PayPal course listed with GBP sign icon

The default currency symbol for PayPal is a dollar sign. If you are using GBP or Euros or another currency, you can change this by creating your own customised icon with your choice of currency. Make it 16x 16 pixels and call it icon.gif Upload your new icon via FTP to your moodle directory>enrol>paypal>pix. Your icon.gif will override the dollar sign. Make sure you refresh your page to be sure of the changes.